Joseph’s Sons
And now thy two sons, who were born unto thee in the land of Egypt before I came unto thee into Egypt, are mine; Ephraim and Manasseh, even as Reuben and Simeon, shall be mine. And thy sons, that thou begettest after them, shall be thine; they shall be called after the name of their brethren in their inheritance. And as for me, when I came from Paddan, Rachel died unto me in the land of Canaan in the way, when there was still some way to come unto Ephrath; and I buried her there in the way to Ephrath—the same is Beth-lehem.” And Israel beheld Joseph's sons, and said: “Wherefrom are these?” (Genesis 48:5-8) The above narrative in the Torah portion Vayechi is quite perplexing. It starts with a shocking pronouncement by Jacob that two [...]
